Not surprisingly, many of Coronado High School’s art students are major contributors to the yearbooks, which were originally called The Poppy starting with the first edition in 1923. The annual’s name changed to The Beachcomber in 1945.

Esther Painter Hagstrom served as art advisor to the yearbooks while some of her students worked as artists for the yearbooks. For example, William McCants, one of her “star” pupils, designed the cover of The Beachcomber in 1947, the year he graduated. McCants’ sophisticated illustration depicts a “conquistador” dressed for Coronado’s beach climate.

The 1948 Beachcomber lists Louise Wigchert, Jimmie Wong and Ollie Bisbee as staff artists. Wigchert and Bisbee were Art Club members. All three were students in Mrs. Hagstrom’s art classes. That year the annual’s pages were full of elaborate illustrations of underwater scenes complete with mermaids and tropical fish.

In general yearbook illustrations are not signed. That’s why it’s surprising to see B. Eagles’ signature on five drawings within the 1949 Beachcomber, which was themed to California’s 1849 Gold Rush. Barbara Lou Eagles, who served as one of the annual’s two art editors, also designed the cover that year.

She served as an art editor again for the 1950 Beachcomber, which had the Hotel del Coronado on a cover designed by Brook Temple. None of the annual’s illustrations, which feature the hotel, boats and water scenes,bear signatures.

Unbeknownst to anyone then, Barbara Lou Eagles was Esther Painter Hagstrom’s future daughter-in-law. Barbara married her art teacher’s only child, Robert Painter Hagstrom, in 1953. Robert Hagstrom, Coronado High School class of 1948, was a student at the University of California Berkeley when his mother died in January 1951.

The couple had one child, Suzan Esther Hagstrom, who is the only grandchild of Esther Painter Hagstrom. In researching the grandmother she never met and through scrutinizing Coronado High School’s yearbooks, Suzan learned that her mother Barbara was a talented artist.